Chapter 14:

With the sole source of light once more reduced to the feeble illumination of banked lanterns and windowsill candles from the town beyond the rubble, picking a path out of the woods was a slow and cautious matter. Garibaldi held his flashlight at the ready, but off, to avoid giving away their position to the very people they were looking for.

Listening to the racket they were making as they moved back toward the town, Sheridan doubted just how necessary that was. Between the underbrush they were pushing through, and the long-dead branches and twigs crunching and snapping under their feet, he had no illusions about taking anyone by surprise.

Sure enough, the moment they stepped out of the trees, he became aware of a pair of dark silhouettes standing directly between them and the town, perhaps fifty yards away. Sheridan stopped, waiting to see if they would make the first move, but they simply stood there silently. He took a step forward, and when there was still no reaction, another, and another.

Beside and slightly behind him, Garibaldi hissed, "Captain, you sure this is such a good idea?" His hand was hovering pointedly over his holster.

"Probably not," Sheridan admitted in a taut whisper, glancing marginally over his shoulder. Marcus was suddenly nowhere to be seen, he noticed from the corner of his eye. "They had plenty of chances to attack us on the way here," he reminded the security chief in the same whisper.

"Don't remind me," Garibaldi muttered back at a barely audible volume. "Let's hope they haven't changed their minds."

"After the light show we just put on? Not a chance."

Garibaldi was about to make a comment about how twitchy the captain was looking, but was interrupted when the figure in the lead spoke suddenly, his voice startlingly loud in the silence that had reigned since the end of the gun battle.

"That's far enough." It was too dark to make out any details of the speaker's features, but they could see that one of his hands was buried within a pocket on the inside of his overcoat.

Garibaldi spotted the slight movement instantly, and his fingers twitched convulsively, only millimeters from his PPG. "Captain, he's armed," he breathed.

"I see it," Sheridan replied in a faint murmur. Making sure to keep his hands visible, and to make no sudden movements, he called out, "You've been following us for most of the day," he said clearly, making sure the other man understood that it wasn't a question. "Mind telling us why?"

"No," the other replied in a decidedly non-Southern twang, after a moment's thought. "But first, maybe you won't mind telling us just what the hell kind of guns those are, who you are, and where your other friend is."

Sheridan pursed his lips in concentration, trying to decide where to begin, and more importantly, how to do it without getting into another shooting match. "All right, to answer your last question first, let's just say that he's… around. As for who we are…" he trailed off with a throaty chuckle, trying to figure out how he was going to explain this.

The scrap of wood they'd found in the rubble told him that these people must have had some kind of experience with time travelers, which in turn made clear why history had been tossed so completely out the window. But they'd also plainly never seen anything like a PPG before, which made the whole situation both easier and more difficult to explain. On one hand, it meant that they might believe him about when he came from – but judging by the condition of the old warehouses, their last experience had not been an entirely positive one, and even if they believed the when of his story, they might not be inclined to believe the who, how, or why of it.

Electing finally to keep it simple, he said, "My name's John Sheridan. And this," he nodded slowly, tilting his head, "is Michael Garibaldi. We're not looking for a fight."

The other man relaxed his alert posture, and as his hand slipped away from the pocket in his vest, Garibaldi's restless hand also settled within inches of his PPG, though he was confused about the other man's reaction, given that he still clutched the small boxy shape of his flashlight in his other hand. It was as if the guy wasn't worried about it at all. 

"I'm Colonel Henry Pleasants, and this here's First Sergeant Nate Caudell," the stranger said with a gesture to each of them. "That's Army of the Confederacy, Mr. Sheridan, supposing for the moment that that is your real name."

"It is."

Pleasants nodded in a considering manner, beginning to walk forward. Sheridan took that as a sign that their standoff was over, and took his own measured strides forward, until they met in the middle of the small glade between the ruins and the edge of the forest.

"I'll tell you what, Sheridan," Henry announced as they drew to within a few feet, "You tell me where you're from, and why you're here, and if I like what I hear, maybe we'll answer your questions."

Sheridan didn't care for the sound of that, but he realized how badly they needed more information, and these two looked like they might have it. "All right," he agreed. The way Garibaldi stiffened beside him told him more than he needed to know about what his security chief thought of that. He just hoped Marcus would be patient enough to hold still for a few moments longer.

Clearing his throat, and going out on the longest, thinnest limb available, he began, "I'm Captain John Sheridan," – Garibaldi exhaled noisily – "this is Chief Warrant Officer Michael Garibaldi, and we are from… the future. The year 2260, in fact." His memory skipped over everything that was happening: Q, Babylon 4, Junior, alternate realities, Picard and his ships from even further ahead in another future… Better keep it simple, he told himself. "We are…"

The thought was never completed, because Henry Pleasants suddenly whooped and shouted, "I knew it!" Oddly, from Sheridan's perspective, he was staring at his companion as he said it. "I knew it!" he repeated excitedly. "There was no way in hell you Rebs coulda designed a brand new 30-shot repeater and build enough for all of your armies with those guild shops you call factories!"

"At the time, Henry," Caudell explained with a sidelong glance at their audience, "we didn't much think about it. They were better than any old Springfield, but hell, none of us were engineers like you. I didn't know a thing about when they came from 'till afterward, and didn't much care, either. They let us outshoot you Yanks, and that's all that mattered to us."

"That's all that mattered to us too," Pleasants replied with uncharacteristic venom. He pushed that aside suddenly with a shake of his head. "Sorry Nate, I didn't mean it like that… but… aw hell, we'll talk about that later. No need to go dragging up the past now."

Caudell nodded in silent agreement, turning his full attention back to the two people in front of him. "Go on, Mr. Sheridan, you were saying?"

Sheridan's face screwed up in a skeptical frown. "Thirty shot repeater?" he said, neatly deflecting the original question.

"What's so special about that?" Garibaldi asked at his elbow. "I think they used to have slug throwers that could spit out hundreds, even thousands of rounds a minute."

"Not so much special as impossible, Mr. Garibaldi. During the Civil War, the main infantry weapon of the day was a muzzle-loading percussion-cap rifle," Sheridan explained, dropping into a lecturing tone. "Breach-loading guns were so new that only a handful of units got them – cavalry mostly – and those few actual repeating weapons were restricted to a handful of shots, and were extremely expensive. Nothing at all should have been able to shoot thirty shots."

"Civil War?" Pleasants repeated. Caudell shushed him quickly, knowing he had a lot of things that he needed to explain to his friend later.

Garibaldi's lip curled in an unpleasant smile, suddenly understanding. "So you think someone's been screwing with the past. You said that much when we were crammed in the back of that damned wagon."

"I've known that much since I saw the date on that newspaper. But now," Sheridan stated with a grim nod, "I know how things were changed.

"The only question now," he added, "is who did it, and why."

To the surprise of three of the men in the clearing, and one who was cloaked in the shadows out of sight but within earshot, it was Nate Caudell who answered. Pleasants had been the dominant force in the conversation since they'd met, and Sheridan hadn't paid much attention to his smaller and quieter friend. "If you even need to ask a question like that, you might just be who you've been saying you are," Caudell said quietly. "I don't know all the details o'course. They don't tell us sergeants more than we need to know. But I do know that it was early in '64, still winter out, when a big ole' wagon load of boxes pulled up by our camp. We'd heard some rumors, but nothing much, since we were some of the first to get 'em. Big feller up on top, wearing this green and brown splotches getup, by the name of Benny Lang, he gets down and starts passing out crates. He was a strange character, sure as hell. Almost as tall as you are," he recalled, gesturing to Sheridan, who was aware not for the first time of his own towering height relative to everyone he'd met so far in this time.

"Bigger though," Caudell went on. "Meanest sonofabitch I've ever met, when he wanted to be. Just to make a point, he stretched out one big lout from our company with his bare hands – not that Billy didn't have it coming, by God," Caudell said reflexively, and with an air of perverse satisfaction. "Then Benny Lang goes and starts bringing out the crates. Well, we open them up, and there's the repeaters, tucked in neat as can be. He showed us how to fire 'em, clean 'em, and strip 'em, then he moved on to the next regiment. I hear one of those boys stopped at every brigade in the division that same day. And then the next division and the next, until we all had 'em. And the word is, every last one came from right here."

Garibaldi was having flashbacks on the story Beverly Crusher had told them during the walk to Rocky Mount. He still found the idea that a single book could cause so much change to be somewhat far-fetched… but a hundred thousand automatic weapons a century more advanced than they should be – now that was concrete. The fact that it was Earth, and not some nameless little planet in another dimension, only heightened the impact.

Caudell went on with his story, keenly aware of the reactions it was generating among his small audience. "A few weeks later, the orders came down, and we moved out towards the Wilderness. A month after that, Marse Robert had us in Washington." He shrugged, adding, "With all of that, we figured on 'em being the sort we could count on. Guess we got shown otherwise."

Sheridan shook his head, trying to fit what he was being told with what he'd learned of the period in his own century. "So everything went the same as our history until 1864. Then these people showed up with a supply of weapons from the future…"

"AK-47's," Caudell supplied.

The term meant nothing to Sheridan, but Garibaldi whistled uneasily. History wasn't his forte, but weapons were, and a few of the more effective designs he'd learned of had stayed with him. "These men then," Sheridan continued, "brought enough for every army in the Confederacy, and it was enough to let you win the war."

"Unreal," Pleasants breathed, wagging his head slowly from side to side. He'd guessed as much ever since the battle for Rivington, but to have suspicions like that confirmed was… well, unreal was as gentle a way to describe it as any.

"That's about the size of it," Caudell answered, his own head hanging. As much as he'd have loved to insist that the Army of Northern Virginia could have gone on to nothing but victory, he had known otherwise for years, courtesy of a history book that would never be published now.

"I take it everything didn't go entirely smoothly after that." Garibaldi's voice was droll, his eyes pointedly scanning the ramshackle buildings of the town where all of this had supposedly begun.

Caudell chuckled shallowly. "You might just say that," he admitted, following Garibaldi's gaze for a moment. "I don't have the whole story, you understand. I expect only Marse Robert and a few others actually do. But I can put two and two together, so I'm guessing it was manumission that stuck in their craw."

Looking sidelong at Sheridan, Garibaldi mouthed, Marse Robert?

Sheridan nodded slightly. "Robert E. Lee."

"President Lee," Caudell corrected, having caught the exchange. "I never did see anyone else who treated darkies that bad," he continued. "Lots of folks think they're better than 'em, but those boys actually hated 'em." A sudden image flashed into his head of the mulatto wench Josephine begging for Caudell to hide her somehow… and the news that she'd later hanged herself to escape the Rivington men, and Caudell spit angrily into the dirt. "So when Marse Robert said he was gonna free all the slaves, lots of people got themselves all riled up – but the Rivington men, they tried to assassinate him at his own inauguration. Killed a few damn fine people trying, too, including Mrs. Lee." He paused, swallowing the pain generated by that death, remembering how Mary Lee had sat outside her Richmond home during the mustering out to bestow lemonade and pastries on the lines of battle weary soldiers returning from the front. In the days after the assassination attempt, not a few former soldiers had volunteered to "interrogate" the assassins and any other Rivington men they could have gotten their hands on.

Henry Pleasants filled the void in the conversation then; finishing the story with what he'd experienced himself. "The Rivington men had been supporters of Lee's opponent, General Forrest, during the election. Even Forrest had too many morals for that… when Lee shook out a few brigades to take this town, Forrest took command, and whipped 'em good."

"No small thanks to that big goddamned hole you blew in their lines, Henry," Caudell pointed out, his humor returning in some measure.

Pleasants grinned at that, visibly preening. "Well, I'm sure that helped some," he said with transparently false modesty.

Caudell let fly an amused snort, returning the smile faintly. He grew more serious, turning back to Sheridan and Garibaldi, still giving them a suspicious look. It wasn't that he thought they could possibly be Rivington men anymore, but between their nearly magical technology and the fact that they had spirited Mollie and Ruffin away to wherever they had come from, he wasn't ready to trust them just yet. "Now that we're all acquainted, Captain Sheridan, I'd sure like to know your story. Where… when, rather, did you come from, and just why are you picking around this particular town? Seems mighty convenient to me."

Sheridan's own smile was crooked and half-hearted. How the hell am I supposed to explain this whole mess when I don't even understand the half of it myself? he wondered miserably. Better keep it simple. "Actually, we're here for almost the same reasons you are," he started slowly, working out his story in his own mind. "We have… information that these 'Rivington men' as you call them may have returned. And after what you've told us, I'd say that they aren't likely to have your best interests at heart. The long and short of it is that we're here to stop them."

Pleasants clucked his tongue thoughtfully. "Say we believe you for the moment," he allowed. "That leaves a few questions. Right off, let's start with why."

"Why…" Sheridan bit his lower lip. "To tell you the truth, I don't understand it all myself."

"Then tell us what you do know," Caudell replied. "You call that other friend of yours out here, and we'll take you where we think we'd best be looking. It's a mile or so from here, so on the way, you're going to tell your story. All of it."

Holding up a hand, Pleasants warned, "Hold up there, Nate. You're still not armed yourself, and if the Rivington men really are back, we'll need to fix that quick. I think the President must have been expecting this sooner or later: there's a guard post not too far from where their houses are, and we should be able to pick up some rifles there. Our new friends here seem to be armed just fine, but we need more firepower." He was rapidly slipping back into the rhythm of command, and the orders were coming faster, and with more authority now. And one thing he was sure of, the oak leaves and triple stars that had once adorned his shoulders gave him that right. "Captain Sheridan, you and your people are with us as of right now. We're going in purely to investigate, and if we find anything fishy, I'll wire Forrest. On the way, you'll…" He stopped cold, hearing an impatient cicada-like chirp from Sheridan's vest, and regarded the man coolly with a questioning eye.

The sound, which had been inaudible under the racket and hiss of PPG-fire, carried easily enough even over the drone of real cicadas and the chitter of katydids in the grass and trees around them, and Sheridan grimaced. He could only guess what Picard wanted to bawl at him for now, and withdrawing the small pin slowly from its pocket, pressed it as he'd been shown, and barked, "Sheridan, go."

The voice that came back was not Picard's, and it took him a moment to recognize Commander Data's even tones. "Captain, Doctor Crusher reports that her patient will recover, but that she will be sending Doctor Bashir down in her place. Please advise when the opportunity for a transport presents itself."

Glancing briefly at the two men in front of him, Sheridan finally nodded to himself. What the hell. They've already seen it once, and they know almost as much as I do. "Now's fine," he said, and scarcely had he finished speaking before a column of energy materialized only feet away.

Caudell gasped, but Pleasants only slipped his hand uneasily into his tunic beside the holstered pistol, turning a weapon designed a century after his birth into his most secure contact with reality.

The cascading wash of bright particles faded almost immediately, leaving behind a darker complexioned man struggling to pull his remaining boot onto his foot. Bashir took stock of the situation quickly as he laced it up, dryly observing, "I take it we're playing fast and loose with the Prime Directive? Again?"

"Well it's certainly about time," a clipped English accent noted with some asperity. Sheridan hadn't even seen the man move – and judging by their reactions, neither had anyone else – but Marcus was suddenly standing to his left, looking as though he'd never been anywhere else. "I was beginning to think we'd be standing around all night just chit-chatting." He gestured grandly with his cloak, and half-bowed to no one in particular. "Shall we finally be off, then?" 

Garibaldi opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it, and turned to Pleasants, waving one hand at the black forest. "Lead on."

The trek through the woods was a short one compared to their earlier travels, perhaps a mile along a relatively level road bed. To Sheridan's surprise, despite the obvious disuse of the trail, it was far smoother than the ones they'd hiked in the vicinity of Nashville. The crushed limestone pounded into the dirt was only beginning to lose a battle with encroaching weeds and in the uncertain illumination of the flashlights carried by Garibaldi and Bashir, the path shone a ghostly white in the chilly, clammy night. The lights of the town of Rivington had already been lost in the trees behind them as the road weaved between solid ranks of invisible tree trunks.

The group moved slowly, taking the distance at an easy walk. Garibaldi and Doctor Bashir had taken positions to either side, using their flashlights to spot the minor obstacles in the road before someone could stumble over one. Somewhere up in the darkness in front of them, Sheridan knew, Marcus Cole was gliding through the trees well off the road itself. The Ranger had been the logical choice to take point; had insisted upon it, in fact, if only (in his own words) so he wouldn't have to listen to Sheridan "try to explain this bloody mess all over again."

And that was what he found himself doing. He hardly understood it all himself, suspected that even Picard was at something of a loss, and now was attempting to relate as much of the story as he knew to two people with a frame of reference four centuries out of date. From another dimension.

And they believed it.

He could tell that Caudell was skeptical. The Confederate First Sergeant was peppering him with questions that were more pointed than he'd anticipated, some of which he had no good answer for, just yet. Pleasants was an odd contrast though; he's seemed outspoken enough when they'd met, but as they trudged through the gloom, he kept to his own counsel, listening intently, but saying nothing. The man was enigmatic at best, an obvious Northerner calling himself a Confederate colonel, and he struck Sheridan as being quietly shrewd. Garibaldi plainly didn't trust him, and Sheridan had to remind himself rather forcefully that Garibaldi didn't trust anyone until they'd proven themselves.

Unnervingly though, neither man seemed completely lost by his narrative, even in places where he himself had to fight down wonder and anxiety. Of course, he couldn't actually prove that they did believe him: but in his time on Babylon 5, dealing with dozens of shifty, sometimes obtuse ambassadors, he considered himself something of a good judge of character. He didn't believe these two were just humoring his crazy ramblings, just as he had found that he'd believed Picard's wild tale back in his office only a few days ago.

As Sheridan wrapped up his story, Pleasants finally spoke. "Captain, do you have any idea how that all sounds?"

The former Earthforce officer could only shake his head and laugh, recalling Garibaldi's adamant protests about Picard, which only really ended after he'd been rescued by the man and his impossible ship. "Oh, I have a pretty good idea."

"That's good," Pleasants replied conversationally, "because if I didn't know better, I'd say that'd you stopped off for some of the local moonshine on the way here." He shook his own head in turn, then extended an index finger towards a faint light just becoming visible through the foliage on their left. "If I'm not mistaken, that's the place we're looking for."

He led them off the road and into the woods along a faint, rutted path, little more than a deer trail really, which ended after a few dozen yards at the front door of a small cabin where tallow lanterns shone dull yellow from the window sills.

"No sentries?" Garibaldi asked, his left hand inching back to his PPG holster.

"I don't see any," Caudell said uneasily. "Do you think the Rivington men found this place already, Henry?"

"And left the lights on for us?" Pleasants asked rhetorically. He reached out, and twisting the brass knob, pushed the door open.

The handsomely dressed officer sitting at a desk within, feet propped up on the surface, promptly fell backwards out of his chair with an indignant yelp. Four men seated before a cheerfully crackling fire in a small stone hearth glanced up from their poker game, expressions ranging from annoyed to malicious glee at the officer's expense. None of them made a move for a weapon, for which Garibaldi was grateful. His left hand relaxed slightly.

Hauling his considerable girth out of his chair, and climbing off the floor with as much dignity as he could muster, the officer in the neatly pressed slate-grey uniform glowered at the intruders darkly. "Now just see here! This area is strictly off-limits to civilians! Explain yourselves!"

Picking out the single gold star on the man's collar, Henry Pleasants took a firm step forward, working up the most ferocious scowl he could manage – with Rivington men uppermost on his mind, it was no mean effort – and made a point of critically surveying the room. He took in the fat sputtering officer, the four poker players, the uniform jackets tossed casually across the bunks in the corner, and the obvious smell of moonshine whiskey in a single, disapproving glance.

"Someone's going to have some explaining to do," Pleasants intoned, "but it won't be me. You obviously aren't up to your duties, so I'll be requisitioning the weapons I need." Aware that they were about to have a run-in with a fresh batch of Rivington men – the same Rivington men who'd tried to assassinate the President, and who'd held off an entire division under Forrest for the better part of a month – he decided it wouldn't hurt to bring along as much muscle as he could manage, from wherever he could get it. "Your men too, Major."

The other man had gone livid as the sound of Pleasants' obviously Pennsylvanian accent reached his ears, but when his muddled brain finally picked out the substance of what he was being told, his face turned the color of an undercooked side of roast beef. "You will do no such thing!" he bellowed in a quavering voice. "You're on Army property, Yankee. I can have you shot as spies!"

On Pleasant's right side, Caudell took a deliberate step forward, mimicked by Garibaldi on the Colonel's left, and Sheridan's towering height in the doorway behind them.

Henry Pleasants held up a warning hand though, and slowly crossed to the desk, withdrawing a folded piece of paper from a coat pocket. Without a word, he passed it to the rotund blusterer in the fancy uniform.

Caudell recognized the telegram at once, and relaxed, fighting a nasty grin. Officers like this one, who'd probably spent the war in a cushy quartermaster's depot fifty miles from the nearest fighting were a pox on the Army, he thought. They didn't know how to fight, probably wouldn't dare to even march with their men lest their uniforms become soiled, and generally made the lives of the fighting men difficult. This specimen's sizable midsection was no coincidence, Caudell, suspected. Times weren't as lean as they were during the war, but the Confederate economy was still struggling, and someone with enough money to eat that well most likely obtained his commission through similar means. After the war had ended, too many of these types, having carved out their own comfortable niches in the military, were loath to trade it for the uncertainty of civilian life.

The major wiped his visibly clammy hands on his tunic, and reached for the folded scrap of paper with its unmistakable telegrapher's markings. His hands shook slightly and he fumbled unfolding it, but if anything, as he read, the shaking grew worse, and the blood rushed from his face with such speed that it could almost be heard.

Henry Pleasants is hereby recalled to duty at his prior rank of Colonel in the Army of the Confederate States of America by order of President Lee. Colonel, you are to investigate these rumors of renewed contact with the Rivington men, and are fully authorized to recall to duty local ex-soldiers as you might deem necessary. Further, the resources of the Confederate military shall be at your disposal as you request them. You are to take any and all actions necessary to preserve the security of our nation, and report your findings at the earliest opportunity.

Nathan B. Forrest

General, CSA

Looking up finally from the brief note, the quaking major pushed the paper back across the desk, and tremulously asked, "Y-You are Henry Pleasants?"

"I am. And that's Colonel to you, major." Pleasants paused long enough after that to let it sink in, and then said, "I trust I won't have to repeat my request?"

Fat and happy the other officer might be, but he wasn't a fool. One look at the stern countenance of the non-uniformed colonel in front of him was enough to dispel any doubts he might have entertained about his willingness to inform Forrest about any obstructions. Yankee or not, the man had serious backing. The kind of backing no mere major should be interfering with.

"No sir," the major said as quickly as he could get the words out, standing up so fast that his chair once again tipped over backwards. "Hawkins!" he shouted to one of the four poker players, who were now staring raptly at the small drama that had been unfolding. "Get the colonel what he wants. The rest of you get your uniforms on. Now, damn you!"

Both Caudell and Pleasants, now quite inured to further shock, didn't so much as twitch when Sheridan's Starfleet pin chirped for his attention. The major looked on the verge of a minor stroke, and the other men had stopped dead in their tracks to stare at the source of the noise.

If the sound hadn't yet begun to grate on Sheridan, it was only because he didn't hear it as often as he did his own handlink. "Sheridan, go," he snapped into it.

The voice that came back was unmistakable, as was the urgency in it. "Captain," Marcus said in what could only have been a hissed whisper, "I'm only about two hundred yards down the road from where you are. And there's something here… I think you'll really want to see for yourself."